Our hunt for the small business with the biggest heart is over. We’re delighted to announce the first-ever winner of our Small Business Big Heart Award..

Our hunt for the small business with the biggest heart is over. We’re delighted to announce the first-ever winner of the BusinessesForSale.com Small Business Big Heart Award is Chevening Financial from Kent.

BusinessesForSale.com’s search for a small business that gives back, started back in September last year. We received a huge, heart-warming response and over 100 nominations.

During the course of four months, we announced nine regional finalists – recognised for their support of the local community, volunteering staff, offering apprenticeships and donations to charity.

The BusinessesForSale.com team hotly debated the merits of each of the nine finalists. It was a tough decision, so tough in fact that we announced four additional awards:

Local Community Business Hearts • Village Stores Mickleton, West Country Region • Phil Anderson Financial, Scotland Region

The overall winner

But it was Chevening Financial who stole our hearts. We chose David Hawes-Gatt and his team to celebrate their eight-year long programme of community support – taking pensioners out for shopping and socialising, which has now become the highlight of many of the beneficiaries’ weeks.

To date, Hawes-Gatt has clocked up 4,000 miles taking care of his group of lovely, lively ladies and gone on to also arrange additional outings like Christmas lunches, cream teas and trips to the seaside.

Chevening Financial has been awarded a prize of £1,000 and has donated this to DEBRA, a charity the business supports all year round.

Sir Michael Fallon adds “I was delighted to be able to congratulate David and his team at Chevening Financial in person for receiving this award. Becoming a regional finalist was impressive; winning the national competition is a quite remarkable achievement. I am proud that a business in my constituency is playing such an active role in the community and I look forward to hearing more about its work in the future”

Here are just a few of the comments from the ladies he helps:

“I wouldn’t be able to get here without him.”

“It’s lovely to get together for a natter each week.”

“Some weeks, if I didn’t get picked up, I wouldn’t see another soul.”

“It makes such a difference to me as David picks me up from my door and carries all my shopping into the house.”

“We were all strangers and now we’re all friends.”

“David goes out of his way to be helpful and puts smiles on our faces.”

“The cream tea he organised was fantastic”

Rufus Bazley, Marketing Director atBusinessesForSale.comsaid, “When we launched the Small Business Big Heart campaign, we were confident the small business community would provide plenty of examples of how they help worthy causes, but even we were overwhelmed with the volume and exceptional quality of entries. Because of this judging has been incredibly hard and we felt compelled to award four additional finalists with additional accolades.”

Highly Commended Business Hearts go to Motiv8 Sport of Chester, which specialises in providing sports and active pursuits to transplant survivors and people in need and Trilby A Hair Academy of Winchester which offers hairdresser training to people unable to access college qualifications while also offering free cuts to the homeless.

The Village Stores of Mickleton receives a Local Community Business Heart for its refurbishment of the village’s historic landmarks and organisation of cohesive community events, while Phil Anderson Financial of Aberdeen also receives and Local Community Business Heart for its incredible donations to the city’s homeless.

We plan to run this event again in 2017, so keep your eyes peeled on the BusinessesForSale.com social channels if you know and would like to nominate a small business with a big heart.

About the author

Jo joined Dynamis in 2005 to co-ordinate PR and communications and produce editorial across all business brands. She earned her spurs managing the communications strategy and now creates and develops partnerships between BusinessesForSale.com, FranchiseSales.com and PropertySales.com and likeminded companies.

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